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Lewis Carroll's Looking Glass
" | last = " " }} Lewis Carroll's Looking Glass is an immense mirror, taller than average human height, surrounded by an ornate, gilt frame. The mirror may serve as a gateway to an alternate dimension, which could explain how Pete was able to play ping pong with himself. It is also possible that, if others don't know to look for her, Alice can take on other appearances within the confines of the mirror. Background Lewis Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, wrote stories of a wonderland that could be entered through a looking glass in his famous works Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Although commonly thought to be fantasy or fairy-tales, the stories of Alice's trips to wonderland were instead a chronicle of the descent into madness of a woman by the name of Alice Liddell. In his stories, he described a mirror that was at one point owned by Alice. Warehouse agents tracked down Alice, who was committing a series of murders at the time, and trapped her inside the mirror, though not before she killed one of them. However, it's unknown exactly how they trapped her in the mirror. The publicly known fantasy stories were Warehouse fabrications to hide the truth. Interestingly, some of the other characters in the story of Alice in Wonderland were inspired by artifacts. For example, the Mad Hatter was based on King George III's Crown and the Blue Caterpillar was based on Hakim Abul Fateh Gilani's Hookah. In 2009, Myka and Pete got into an argument while taking inventory of warehouse artifacts, and nearly dropped the mirror on the floor. In an attempt to steady the mirror before it fell and broke, they also jostled the Studio 54 Disco Ball which was sitting above and behind where the mirror was resting. In the process of protecting the mirror, Myka's consciousness was trapped inside of it, thus releasing the consciousness of the murderer Alice Liddell out into Myka's physical body. Alice took Myka's place doing Warehouse business and went on a mission with Pete, eventually using The Jubilee Grand Poker Chip they were tracking to facilitate her access into the Warehouse. Once back in the Warehouse, Alice planned to the destroy the mirror. She was stopped by a concerted effort between Pete, Artie, Claudia, and Leena, and remains once again trapped in the mirror. In its storage location prior to the temporary release of Alice Liddell's psyche, a label on the mirror read: :MIRROR :CHARLES L. DODGSON AKA :LEWIS CARROLL :FILE BLOCK :B732 . 3 MRS . 028 An even older hand-written paper label attached to the frame at the back of the mirror simply reads "MIRROR - Formerly owned by Charles L Dodgson, A.K.A. Lewis Carroll 1832 - 1898" but does not appear to contain any location codes as with the newer label. The mirror was then moved to the Dark Vault, where sensory-activated or otherwise extremely dangerous artifacts are stored, to make sure Alice would stay in Wonderland. Fractures Artie stole the mirror from the Warehouse thinking he was Brother Adrian. The mirror was donated to a thrift store in South Dakota along with a camera flasher with a tag on it that read "Click Me". A woman that worked at the thrift store took the tag's advice and flashed it while accidentally giving Alice the perfect opportunity to steal the woman body. The first thing Alice did with her new body was destroy the mirror and then have some "fun". Pete and Myka first received a Ping after a woman in Rapid City, South Dakota was admitted to a hospital's psychiatric ward after she suddenly went insane. Pete and Myka first discovered Alice and the artifact had both escaped from the Warehouse again after the woman that was affected by the artifact knew their names and a priest she had attacked claimed she started acting this way after she went to get a mirror from a thrift store's storage room. They immediately went to the thrift store only to find the mirror had been destroyed. Little did they know, Alice had already escaped from the hospital and she had a shard of the mirror with her. Alice discovered that by making someone else look into the shard she could immediately jump into that person's body. Alice planned to possess Vanessa Calder and kill Artie by using the body of the woman he loves. Fortunately, Jinks had Alice look into the shard and then fired his Tesla as to trap Alice back in the mirror. The shard of glass still contains Alice's consciousness and is currently in the Warehouse. It's unknown if, given the fact that Artie, while under the influence of the Astrolabe trashed the Dark Vault, that shard is still in one piece. Endless Terror Paracelsus travels back in time and alters history. In this alternate time line, Paracelsus has been Caretaker of Warehouses 9 through 13 and is the sole authority over the Warehouse. After he captures Artie and Claudia, he plans to experiment on them with the mirror. Artie and Claudia try to trick him into letting Alice out, but Pete and Myka return everything to normal before that can happen. A Faire to Remember The Warehouse Dark Vault has just finished being renovated, so all of the artifacts that are normally kept in the Dark Vault like the Mirror are being moved back into it. While Artie is moving artifacts, he looks into the mirror and says, "Alice are you in there?" and sees Alice's reflection staring back at him. Artie then puts the mirror back into its box and says, "You just go back to planning ways to kill me." Later in that same episode, Myka complains by saying, "How many times has Alice escaped from that mirror?" How it Works When first introduced, the effects of the artifact seem to be that it creates a sentient reflection behind the glass, an effect that Pete takes advantage of to play ping-pong ball with 'himself'. However, further appearances reveal the mirror's more sinister attributes. Whenever someone is standing in front of the mirror and there's a bright flash of light, the consciousness of the user and the person trapped in the mirror switch places. So, the person who was previously trapped in the mirror is now inside the user's body, while the user's consciousness is caught in the mirror. Nothing can come out of the mirror without something going in, so for a person to be freed from the mirror someone else has to take their place. Without the mirror, or at least part of it, both users will be forever imprisoned wherever they are. If someone from the mirror is in another person's body, their true form will be revealed in any reflection of them. People trapped in the mirror have claimed that it was like they were surrounded by nothing, but cold, darkness, and silence, and all they could feel was absolute loneliness. Souls trapped in the mirror are seen instead of reflections, but Alice Liddell somehow manages to look like others (such as when she plays ping-pong with Pete in the guise of Pete), possibly because of how long she spent in the mirror. Before Alice went insane, she was an ordinary little girl attending a tea party at a Mr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll's, house. During the party, she went exploring around the house, when she found both the mirror and Mr. Dodgson's hand gun. When Alice's mother saw her with the gun she tried to take it away from her, but Alice refused and accidentally shot her mother. Alice was standing next to the mirror as she watched her mother die right in front of her. This event seemed to upset something in Alice's mind and drive her to insanity and ultimately turn her into a serial killer. It's possible this event is what turned the mirror into an artifact. Real World Connections In the episode "Duped", Artie describes the interaction of the Studio 54 Disco Ball and the mirror as like the "shadows on a wall at Hiroshima." He is describing the common effect that resulted from the thermal rays of "Little Boy," the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Pictures of the after-effects of the explosion show that when the bomb detonated, the thermal rays encountered objects in their path. The resulting collision of rays and objects left shadows on walls, steps, and roads much like photographs, displaying a shadowy imprint of the object encountered, sometimes human in shape. Appearances *" " *" " *" " *" " *" " Looking Category:Damaged or Destroyed Artifacts Category:Psychological Artifacts Category:Season 1 Artifacts Category:Season 4 Artifacts Category:Season 5 Artifacts